Creating Safety Zones

Seoul expands wireless network video surveillance

• By Ksenia Coffman
• Jul 01, 2010

To prevent child kidnappings and locate missing children, Seoul City, Korea, commissioned NongShim NDS, one of the country’s largest system integrators, to expand on its Seoul U-City plan and provide safety zones for children, requiring the addition of a wireless infrastructure mesh network.

NongShim deployed Firetide’s MIMO-based video surveillance network for the child safety zones, which in Seoul represented the fourth and fifth phases of an ambitious plan to create a city-wide wireless sensor network.

A City-wide Effort
The Seoul U-City wireless network provides digital services to residents, tourists, city employees and businesses. So far, the wireless infrastructure mesh equipment has been deployed in Seoul to provide critical, city-wide public and private infrastructure supporting multiple applications, from public safety to Wi-Fi access and municipal department connectivity.

“Since we began the Seoul U-City initiative in 2007, we have been able to deploy exciting applications and services that we did not foresee,” said Kim Jeong Hyun, project manager of Seoul City Hall. “The wireless network is allowing us to more easily provide valuable public and private services, enhancing the wellbeing of our community.”

The main goal of the new phase is to provide video surveillance with motiontracking capabilities in select neighborhoods to help locate missing children.

Kiosk-based video conferencing systems also have been deployed on the network for emergencies, allowing people to make emergency calls to Seoul’s Disaster Prevention Center. Now, officials at the DPC can view incidents in real time and respond quickly.

Keeping Watch
For the safety zones’ surveillance network, NDS chose new high-performing MIMO 802.11n-based HotPort 7200 units from Firetide because of the capacity to backhaul concentrated video traffic from 30 IP surveillance cameras networked by HotPort 6202 nodes. The addition of high-capacity MIMO mesh nodes eliminates the need for a third-party backhaul and created a seamless network that is easier to manage and more cost effective.

“The solution was critical for the safety zones because there is no other wireless mesh product that would allow us to transport such bandwidth-intensive video feeds,” said Daniel Park, general manager of NongShim NDS. “With its groundbreaking performance and capacity, the solution is enabling Seoul to expand and build a city-wide infrastructure on a large scale.”

A location-based system was deployed on the network using sensor nodes and gateway and RF tags. Parents can opt to have their children wear the RF necklaces that communicate to the sensor nodes so teachers and their parents know their location at any time. This is the same LBS solution that is being used in the wireless network in Seoul Forest Park—Seoul’s equivalent of New York City’s Central Park—that also provides other digital services, including free public Internet access and ecological monitoring.

“With the new MIMO-based solution, Firetide is helping the city of Seoul realize its goal of a city-wide wireless infrastructure for its citizens and visitors,” said Bo Larsson, CEO of Firetide. “Seoul’s approach demonstrates how ubiquitous networking can enhance a municipality’s ability to protect the community and provide innovative services.”